Damn I even used Ash to defend against that attack he’s an absolute monster, I feel bad for Krey she has to fight an even stronger monster, I wonder how sh—focus damn it nows, not the time I have my own problems. Orson skillfully pulled his trident back and thrust it toward Oscar, he went to block it with his large spear, but Orson shifted the trident, causing the spear to go into the space in between the prongs of the trident. He then twisted the trident last second with all of his might, this move took a lot of precision and concentration but the force would normally rip the weapon away from an opponent. However, it only twisted Oscar's arm which caused discomfort but hadn’t been enough to cause major damage.
Oscar took advantage of the situation using the momentum of Orson’s twist as a wind-up to a large attack, without the time of a wind-up Oscar could swing with immense force without giving Orson enough time to react enough, he would certainly die if he took that attack without a solid block. Left with no moves left he pulled his shield in front of the spear mere milliseconds before it would have been too late. The spear shattered the shield into pieces. Which in hindsight had saved Orson, if the shield had held on it would’ve been launched back right into Orson's body, and the impact would’ve either killed him or incapacitated him beyond the point of fighting.
Probably two minutes left, both my shields are gone, I have internal injuries and I can feel the Ash usage piling up, even without anything fancy I don’t think I can avoid my side-effect for the rest of this fight. Orson gauged wrong, his side-effect had already started to affect him after his second shield saved his life. Orson had great Ash channeling and his body could handle a lot of Ash going through it, but in this fight, he was punching above his weight class causing him to use a lot more Ash, plus the Abyss increased everything, not too mention the artifact made him more Ash then he would normally. His side effect made it so he started to see delusions. The worse he got affected the more and worse those delusions would become to the point where he would completely lose all reality. But more uniquely his delusions would make him change his perception completely. Now Orson sees himself as a shark hunter, catching one of the greatest and most dangerous sharks in history.
Orson pulled up his harpoon. The most dangerous part of Orson's side-effect was what he imagined could sometimes turn real, his trident really turned into a harpoon. He raised it to eye level, aimed towards the confused Oscar, and launched the raging fast bolt, Oscar pulled up his spear expecting to have to block off the strange attack, but it flung past him and pierced one of Orson's allies killing them instantly. One more to add to my record. Orson said looking quite pleased.
This had been the reason Orson didn’t want to let his side-effect occur, when it happened it would become fundamentally impossible to distinguish between friend and foe. Orson’s now-dead comrade and quite possibly a friend who fought alongside Orson during life-or-death battles only looked to be another shark to hunt for Orson. To him, he was currently in a sea full of deadly sharks meant for him to kill without regard for their lives. He was only a hunter after all and these sharks were all his prey to boost his reputation.
“The hell is wrong with you, have you no honor! Killing your own comrade have I missju—” Wait the look in his eye, it's different than before, it's like he’s a totally different person. Could it be his side-effect? And the harpoon that suddenly appeared I don’t quite understand but that would make some sense. “I hate using this but I can’t watch an insane man kill his own comrades, I am truly sorry but I will no longer hold back.” Oscar wasn’t bluffing, he hadn’t fully revealed his hand yet, he had one more skill that gave him his reputation as one of the strongest.
His spear started to glow a little brighter, a coil of light went through the spear until it stopped at the spearhead where it exploded into electricity. His final skill, he could enhance his weapons with electricity. A type of skill so uncommon in the sea, some believe it to be impossible. While normally making an elemental skill like that wouldn’t be too difficult, in the sea it would be entirely too easy to kill oneself trying to practice an electricity skill. In fact, the rate of success developing any kind of electricity skill would be less than a tenth of a percent. Yet Oscar could transfer electricity into his weapons with ease and keep it at a distance and output where it wouldn’t hurt him. Which made for a deadly skill, with the conductivity of the water even a single attack would kill nearly any sea creature it made contact with.
Orson the shark hunter saw the immediate danger in front of him and quickly aimed his harpoon toward the shark. Oscar's delusion breaking a little, Wait that shark intends to throw a spear at me, how is that possible? Orson didn’t have time to question it further that spear was about to cook him alive, he quickly shot his harpoon before Oscar could throw the spear, but it didn’t matter. The barbed bolt charged at Oscar with incredible accuracy right toward his heart, but he deflected it with his spear easily. Oscar didn’t know why but he could tell his opponent thought of him as a mere animal. He gained this insight when he attacked his comrade instead of him. If he still registered him as an enemy with capabilities of blocking and such he would’ve targeted him from the beginning. So with that in mind Orsons, the next attack would be fit for a dangerous beast, not Oscar and it was a beautiful attack if his goal really had been to slay a great beast of the sea. Oscar threw his spear with electricity attached. Orson had no tricks left up his sleeve his death would be assured even if he regained his previous state nothing would save him now the electricity would shock him alive even if he blocked with Ash or his harpoon launcher.
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Oscar was right, Orson had no moves left to play no matter what he did. Only if Oscar had the heart to finish the fight Orson would be doomed, but in reality he had deactivated his electricity skill in hopes the man he dueled before would return. Of course, this would be going against his mission he should've did everything in his power to kill the enemy, but he knew that the trident man had been fighting for the safety of his comrades, and while he had no intention of killing them in the first place the tridents-mans determination and duty earned Oscar’s full admiration causing him to deactivate the skill.
And like he had predicted the future, Orson suddenly snapped out of the delusion that plagued him. While Orson was in a delusional state he could be pulled out of it temporarily if he sees something that completely breaks the illusion of delusion. The spear being thrown from the shark had broken that delusion. He brought up his now back-to-normal trident, once the delusion ends everything that had been a part of his delusion returns back to normal. With his weakened state, he barely managed to block the attack, the attack flung his trident into the distance and he flew back coughing out a large amount of blood luckily barely holding onto life. However, he knew if Oscar wanted he could kill him anytime now. Damn, I must’ve slipped into a delusion, how much time has passed damn it. He could see Oscar coming up towards him.
“Don’t worry I have no plans on finishing you off unless you want me to kill you for honor perhaps?” Oscar asked genuinely, knowing some who would have accepted that offer. Orson instinctively shook his head but thought Oscar intended to only toy with him before finishing him off. “In that case,” he recalled his weapon and put it across his shoulder blades, “Thanks for the fun, we only have about twenty seconds left before time, you nearly had me haha.” He turned around and swam off.
“No damn it don’t hurt my friends…” Orson tried to scream, but it barely left his mouth resulting in a sad wimper. It didn’t matter anyway, Oscar had no intention to do such a thing and instead only watched the fierce battle between the two squads. In reality, Oscar wanted to call off the whole thing, but knew that would be traitorous towards Welsh and couldn’t so to atone for his sins, he decided to punish himself by watching the death of the people he could’ve saved if only he could utter the words to call it off. Orson watched him with curiosity and suddenly thought, wait, the hell, why were we fighting if he’s such a friendly guy? Before passing out, starting his body started the descent to the bottom of the domain. Fortunately, he would survive the remainder of the domain's skill.
Meanwhile, a while earlier Krey and her squad were engaging Welsh and his squad in a fight of their own. Krey had already activated one of her skills, and the target could not avoid the skill Welsh had become a puppet under her puppet-master skill it would allow her to slightly alter Welsh’s movements at any moment even mid-combat though it took Ash each time, and the target Ash capabilities could make it cost more or less Ash, with Welsh it would cost an immense amount. As she made it a comfortable distance away from Welsh she pulled up her dagger in a defensive stance. Her team, behind her, ready for a battle that would determine if they lived or died.
“Congratulations I applaud y—”
“Shut up.” She hissed back. She didn’t care to listen to his silver-tongued words full of deception and schemes. And as she said that her squad split into teams. A small group of three full of her most elite comrades to try to provide quick relief support and bait attacks towards the domain handler. Three of her long rang Ash users stayed further back to provide long-range assistance. A single tank joined them to try to block off any incoming attacks. The rest; four stayed near Krey they were going to be the main upfront fighters. Welsh’s men also formed into groups, but what they did frightened Krey.
Except for two who stood beside Welsh, they all circled around Glomar the domain handler. Is this bastard really so confident that he can beat all of us with only three?! She was right, Welsh not only had the confidence to beat Krey and her entire squad with the three of them but he would also be been confident in beating them by himself. The other two were merely precarious countermeasures in case something went wrong. Though even with his confidence he wouldn’t be stupid and get rid of all of his comrades for nothing, he truly believed the better bet would be to protect Glomar. Not necessarily only for this fight but for the expedition, if Glomar got killed it would spell disaster for the expedition, as he would provide much-needed breaks in the future. Welsh overflowed with confidence in his victory, but the main reason he did what he did, had nothing to do with that fountain of confidence instead it came from a place of much worry he could not let Glomar die.